The Unseen
by Irene T447
Summary: Angsty teen Nabooru is kidnapped by Ganon. While on the run, they meet Impa, a grieving interpreter whose young client befriends a fragile woman in recovery. Part of a writing prompt challenge with Moonlight97.
1. The Interpreter: a hostage situation

**AN:** Another writing prompt challenge between FF author Moonlight97 and me that we do annually around new year's. All of the following was written over a span of five days, and is in it's unrefined form. Regardless, please enjoy! I encourage feedback, as this will be taken offline at some point to be used as original fiction elsewhere.

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Impa sat beside her father in one of the tough leather seats in the train station. _Another delay?_ She watched the numbers on the arrival/departure panel project another two and a half hours before the train bound for Hyrule returned to the station. Maintenance - Impa heaved a long, internal sigh.

Impa had not been a fan of this trip at all. Despite planning the entire excursion, she had done it more to appease her father than for her own enjoyment. He was, after all, getting older, and would soon have to retire from the prestigious Hylian guard where he had served for nearly thirty years. Benefits such as free travel would no longer be afforded to them. Although she had enjoyed some aspects of the trip, the experience was overshadowed by flashbacks of travelling with him when she was younger.

Gryffin, her father, loved exotic places. Contrarily, Impa preferred consistency over adventure. Perhaps that was why she was initially attracted to the guardsman academy. It was not, as Gryffin proudly assumed, to follow in his footsteps, but because it was extremely predictable. She knew exactly what was demanded of her, her schedule down to the minute, and, most importantly, she rarely had time off to go hitchhiking across Hyrule with her father on some spontaneous idea of father-daughter bonding.

That still did not stop him. In the rare event that she had a week off from the academy, he sequestered her off to some lesser known part of the world where she would bite her tongue and endure endure endure.

It was an accidental encounter in the mountains of snowpeak that introduced her to sign language. At age twenty-two, in the middle of a grueling final evaluation, she left the academy and became an interpreter instead. Her father had been livid. This served as the catalyst for many rifts to form between the two of them over the course of the next eight years.

In an attempt to possibly rekindle their once-close relationship, Impa planned a five day trip along the outskirts of Hyrule and some of the territories beyond. They spent those days going on twelve hour hikes, mountain bike rides, and their last afternoon was spent hang gliding. Her father was very happy, though she was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go home.

An announcement rang overhead. "Attention passengers: There has been a time change to the train outbound for Hyrule. Expect a delay of up to four hours."

Evidently, fate had other plans for her. Impa smoothed the wrinkles out of her black dress and flexed her fingers out of habit. Gryffin ran a hand through his greying black hair.

"We could take an alternate route," he suggested, pointing at another train line. "There's a connection through the desert."

"That sounds like the start of an adventure," she replied, voice hollow. His compact form rose from the seat and walked over to an automatic ticketer before she could protest. "I heard the desert has been volatile lately," she muttered.

She pressed her eyes closed, thinking of the legal issues that could potentially arise. Her passport had technically expired and she traveled as an international guest alongside her father. They had already spent two hours in a long line to verify their paperwork in order to board a train back to Hyrule. They would have to repeat the process at the next station.

He returned and snatched up his suitcase. "Come on, it's this way. We board in five!"

The duo boarded a crowded train where there was hardly enough space to place their suitcases overhead. They found a secluded corner in the back. Gryffin took the window seat. Impa bought coffee.

"I heard you lost your job," he said once they had picked up speed and they were gliding through a thick forest. His voice dropped to a baritone to reflect his seriousness.

"Yes – well, no. Not exactly," Impa remedied. "I found another gig. One that is better paying than the last one. I actually have a contract now." She admitted, "I've been a bit behind on payments."

"Impa!" he grumbled, exasperated. "I keep telling you, had you stayed in the academy you wouldn't be having these kinds of problems."

"Dad, I'm fine," she insisted, blowing thick black bangs from her face. They both knew it was ancient history by now. It served as nothing more than a means to highlight the distance between them and how it came to be.

She and her father differed on many things these days: They thought differently about politics and wanted different things for their country; he wanted to revive strict Sheikah laws that Impa thought were invasive and unethical for modern times; he thought he was somehow superior to others because of his blood and military status, Impa believed that everyone has their own experiences and were incomparable to one another.

Those were really all embellishments to a greater underlying issue, which was that Impa had become a person who her father could not recognize. Over time she had developed her own distinct ideologies and preferences. That was something her father struggled with, not necessarily because he wanted to control her, but because while he thought he knew her, she was a complete stranger to him.

"Don't you find it dull at all? Day in, day out. You never get to be heard.," he continued. "You're just," he made an ambiguous gesture, "miming the words of other people all day long."

"I actually find it fulfilling," she answered, curtly. She sipped her coffee quietly while he fiddled with a gum wrapper. It wasn't like he would ever understand. "I feel like I'm helping people."

"Couldn't you do something to put your better skills to work? One where, I don't know, you actually get paid. It can't be up to me to support you when you're up to your neck in debt. There are countless opportunities for people with the amount of training and experience you have."

"I honestly can't have this conversation with you right now," she said, dismissively, turning away. He muttered something about her reinventing the wheel, but she wasn't paying attention.

Her thoughts meandered to her new client: A fourteen year old girl who just moved from the Twilight to participate in some fast track academic program. She still had difficulties with speaking and reading lips. Impa was hired by the parents under a private contract. It was a very promising prospect and Impa was eager to begin.

Having been exposed to a number of languages, both at the academy and during her travels, Impa had fostered both an appreciation for, and a fascination with language and the cultures which influenced them. She was fluent in standard Hylian and three dialects of Sheikah, and proficient in seven dialects of Gerudo and knew a form of Goron Pidgeon spoken in old tribal communities in the mountains. Yet, in the midst of diversity, there was an underlying sense of unity in language being a simple means of communication.

Her entire perception of communication shifted after she was introduced to sign language. After spraining her ankle climbing a mountain, she was left at a village lodge where the elders passed on stories to the children. She had sat there for three hours entranced by the deft movements made by those dark, knarled hands.

She later discovered that nonverbal communication an integral aspect of their culture. At first she wondered about whole communities that would only communicate in this way. Then she thought about how there was actually an entire community right at home who used it. Those who couldn't hear, couldn't speak. So she learned sign language and became an interpreter.

The train wailed into the next station several hours later. The landscape outside had morphed from dense forest to thick prairie grass to full red sand desert. Impa had fallen asleep and woke to her father's hand on her shoulder.

It was a modern station with greys and tans that blended nicely with the outdoors, which could be seen through wide windows overlooking a canyon. Inside was a complete mob scene as Impa had feared. With great reluctance she took her suitcase in hand and found the back of the long and winding immigration line to have her paperwork checked. Gryffin joined her, arms folded across his broad chest.

Several excruciating minutes later, Impa wondered if this were some divine payback for some mischief she had done earlier in her life. She felt incredibly sore, and was angrily jealous of her father's cheery demeanor.

A light flashed across her vision, and her body jerked in response. She was apparently not the only one, for she collided with someone else nearby and fell to the tiled floor, blinded. The shrill sounds of panic and pandemonium pierced the air above her, and curled into a ball to avoid having her limbs stepped on during the chaos.

"Impa!" her father had pulled her into his grasp and to her feet. "This way. Careful, careful."

"What?" she gasped. She could still see the bright light despite having closed her eyes. She prayed her retinas were not permanently damaged. "How are you-?"

"Flash bomb," he supplied, pulling her stumbling to the side where she could learn against a wall. "There was only one. I was looking in the other direction. Hold tight, it's nastier effects last a couple minutes."

She scrubbed the tears leaking out of her eyes from her face, trying to take deep breaths. She tried to keep her nerves under control while her mind worked furiously to determine why there was a flash bomb in the middle of a train station. She did not have to think long.

Over the clamor Impa heard gunfire. Her nose filled with smoke and she knelt, coughing. Her father swore next to her, taking a knee beside her and pulling his shirt up over his nose and mouth. By the time the smoke had cleared enough to breathe normally, Impa's vision returned. She saw three men wearing bullet proof vests rounding up everyone in the station into one area. Their guns were enormous, semi-automatic war machines. Someone had completely cut the power.

She and her father moved towards the center of the room and knelt as they were told. They were searched and had their phones taken. Her father's pocket knife was seized. Upon closer inspection, Impa realized that one of them men was not, in fact, wearing a bullet proof vest, but a jacket loaded with enough explosives to take wipe out any trace of the station.

"Everyone be quiet!" one of the men addressed them, and came forward. Impa identified him as their leader. Once the room had silenced, he waved a phone up in the air so that everyone could see. "As you can all see, my comrade here carries thirty six pounds of live explosives on his body. This! I hold the trigger. I hold all of your lives in my hand."

He went on to speak about the oppression of his tribe, and how he had witnessed the murder of thousands of innocent lives for senseless reasons. How every day they cry out for help, and yet the world continues to turn a blind eye to their plight.

"Is this a tribal dispute?" Impa asked, scarecely moving her lips. "I've never heard of them before."

"A radical minority. The government sold the land they were living on to build the station we're sitting in," her father supplied. Impa's eyes widened.

"They've also been at war for thirty-three years with one of the neighboring tribes who would not let them move in when they were displaced. They've had a rough bundle of years."

"You're not planning on trying to take them on, are you?" Impa asked, feeling suspicion and panic rising in her chest. "They'll blow this place immediately."

"No, not yet," he replied, cryptically.

"You will swear loyalty to us. You will vow to take up arms against our oppressors. Or else, you will die today."

They were rounded up again, pressed against the wall, side by side with their hands above their heads. Impa turned away as the leader started at one end and questioned the first man leaning against the wall for his fealty. She heard a crack and the man grown. He was removed and placed back in the center of the station on his knees.

The leader continued making his way along the wall. Those who surrendered to their demands were bound and forced to kneel where they had stood against the wall, those who resisted were struck and dragged out to the middle of the floor. Too soon, they came to Impa's father.

But before the leader could speak his question, Impa's father spoke. "There used to be a town twelve kilometers east that was home to your brothers. I am truly sorry."

"Brother, are you an ally?" the leader asked, squinting at Gryffin's pointed ears and red Sheikah eyes.

Gryffin ignored the question, "My heart goes out to the countless many whose innocent blood has been shed due to your country's tyranny."

The two men continued to exchange, to Impa's surprise, pleasantries. Even more surprising was seeing the leader lower his gun and lean against the wall as they spoke.

"Are you thirsty? You've been shouting your throat raw. I have water in my bag."

Impa's breath caught in her chest, but was relieved by the leader's answer.

"Quite."

The leader glanced between Gryffin and the comrade who was not strapped to explosives and beckoned that he come take his place. Gryffin found his bag among the possessions that had been piled around a pillar and retrieved three unopened bottles of disposable water.

"What is your name?" Gryffin asked once the leader had taken in.

"What's yours?"

"Gryffin."

"Johnny."

"Johnny," Gryffin repeated. "I'll remember that. Johnny, are you and your men hungry?"

Johnny seemed puzzled, his bright green eyes narrowed suspiciously. "No, no we are not."

"If you let me have a phone, I will call for food."

"Like I said, we are not hungry!" Johnny snapped, fingering his gun.

Impa's father put his hand up. "I understand, but many of us have been travelling for several hours. I think the people in here need something to eat and drink."

Impa listened to the exchange, watched Johnny mull her father's words over for a while before summoning the man wearing the explosives over to talk it through with him. After several long minutes, Johnny nodded.

"You must use our phone," Johnny said, placing one into Gryffin's outstretched hand.

"I hope you like pizza," was Gryffin's response.

The toppings were generic, and many pies had come from different joints. The scent of tomato sauce and melted cheese filled the air as the boxes were opened and looted for their contents. After doing a quick head count, Gryffin determined that they would need one-hundred pizzas and went about ordering as many as he could.

Impa knelt, hunched over an empty box with a slice in her hand. Gryffin finished his conversation with Johnny and his men before sitting down next to her. She stared at him incredulously.

"You're not the only one who's good at communicating," Gryffin responded to her eyes. "Do you see that one on the right?" he asked, and Impa looked to the men in vests. "His name is Will. I think he's having some serious doubts about their actions today."

"He'll likely be shot by one of his comrades," Impa said. "The other one came with a bomb strapped to his body- they all came in willing to die for this cause."

"That's right," he acknowledged. "But it's also possible that this can end civilly." Impa was not convinced, so he continued, "Just in case I need you to be ready to lend me a hand if need be."

"Dad –" Impa looked overwhelmed.

"I am dead serious. If we can get one of them to turn to our side, then we're two on two," he reasoned. "We might even inspire the crowd to participate. I'm going to continue negotiating with them."

Gryffin returned to the center of the station where Johnny stood, and continued talking with him. Impa watched but could no longer hear, which was disconcerting. She took a sweeping look over the crowd – most were older, some had children. They were not fighters. Her father was right.

Johnny ordered that everyone stand against the wall again and began the recruitment continued. His move was highly ominous, as ws her father's expression. Gryffin crossed his arms, looking dark. Will had been given a motivational talk by his leader, and his face was reset anew in a mask of zealotry.

More and more people were piled into the center of the station, until there was a sizeable ring of men and women who had been struck down lying in the center, dazed. Johnny stopped the recruitment and walked over to them, clearly dissatisfied with how many resisted, and raised his gun at them. Impa tensed, watching her father gather himself to tackle Johnny. A voice rang out, stopping them.

"That's enough! Stop!" It was the unnamed man with the explosive jacket. He stayed Johnny's gun with a hand.

"Adam, what are you doing?!"

"I can't do this, Johnny!" he shouted, pawing at the vest he wore. Sweat beaded his forehead and his cheeks flushed angrily. "I won't be a part of this any longer!"

An enraged Johnny backhanded Adam across the face, the resulting slap ricocheting across the walls. Adam dropped and Johnny took the trigger out of his pocket.

Impa and Gryffin dove at Johnny, tackling him to the ground. Shots rang out as Will fired, aiming for Gryffin. They tumbled and slammed until Impa had wrestled the trigger from his grasp.

The men and women who had been struck down earlier that day rose up and grappled with the other two until they, too were subdued. Others reached for their bags and belongings, sifting through purses and clasps to reach their phones. Rounds of applause rippled through the station as hostages realized their liberation.

Impa did not realize exactly how much blood she was sitting in until the foreign armed forces had disentangled her from the hold she and her father had placed Johnny in to keep him down. She looked down at herself, and for a heart stopping moment wondered if she had been shot and hadn't realized it. After pressing hands down her front and back, and running fingers along her arms and legs, she determined that she was alright.

She felt a breath of release. It was over.

When the paramedics came swooping in, she tried to push them away so that she could get up on her own. She wanted her own space and to find her things. It soon became very apparent that they were not there for her, and then her heart did stop for a moment.

"Dad?" she ventured, spinning around, searching for his familiar face. She saw the aggregate of paramedics loading someone onto a gurney, strapping them down. "Dad!" she screamed, pushing through the mass.

She knew it was before her way was cleared to see who was lying on the gurney. She saw his face for only a moment before he was wheeled out of the station and she was left standing there with two suitcases, drenched in blood.

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Writing prompt number 32: Pixar storytelling formula


	2. A Beast in the Night

Ganon watched little boy with a bouncy blue ball tucked beneath his arm stumble up to him with begging eyes. He recognized what the child wanted and slackened his grip on the leash in hand. The Hylian's eyes lit like candles before he fell to his knees on the crumbling sidewalk and cradled the corgi's head between his fingers. Ganon relaxed, somewhat pleased that the child was happy.

The boy's mother came jogging by through wet grass beside the forest and barely made eye contact with the oversized man in a heavy rainjacket. "Sorry!" she muttered, attention already on her son. "Anton, time to go," she declared, sternly, so that the boy's lip puckered.

"But ma!" The boy protested, dropping his ball to run fingers along the underside of the dog's white belly where the fur was softest. "Puppy!"

"I am sure that this nice man has places he needs to be," the mother replied, nervously. When the boy showed no signs of stopping, she apologized again. "You don't mind that he pets your dog, do you? He does this every time –"

"I have no problem with it," Ganon replied, his voice rough. He spoke loudly, as if the words were forced from his lips and he hadn't spoken in a while. He cleared his throat, feeling a perhaps a bit sheepish. He didn't mind kids in the slightest. Usually it was their parents he took issue with.

The boy named Anton kicked his ball away. "Go fetch!"

Ganon let the leash go slack and watched his dog go chasing a high bouncing ball on ridiculously short legs. The boy was definitely uncoordinated, a trait that seemed to embarrass his mother. In this moment, Anton did not notice for his face radiated joy. Ganon felt too content to feel bothered by the mother's muttering and fussing.

When children were happy, Ganon felt as if the world was a good place.

After several more minutes of this, the mother managed to pull her son away to continue their walk. The dog was a soaked mass of mud and orange fur, and was freezing. Ganon thought it best to return home, and lead the way deep into the heart of the woods.

Home was a ramshackle cabin he had built nearly ten years ago. There was a generator for electricity, and some basic plumbing. Most food he either bought from the town market on the weekends when he actually went into town – something he was loath to do out of dislike towards spending time in the presence of many people – or he caught it himself.

Corgi was not a great hunting dog, but the little furball made good companionship. The best, in Ganon's opinion. Never to judge or yell or say mean things. Corgi would always love him and be happy as long as he was taken care of. The dog's only flaw was an absolute fear of thunderstorms. No being was made perfect, so in the great scheme of things, Ganon figured it was alright.

There had been a light rain for many days on end. Today was the first break in the constant rainfall, though the skies foretold of a brewing tempest. Ganon prepared himself for restless night of dog barking through the night.

Corgi began barking before the rains or the thunder hit. When the winds picked up speed until they screeched and screamed by the wooden walls, Corgi began a mad dash from one end to the other. Ganon ignored the dog, throwing another thick wool blanket over himself while he tended to the fire. It would be over soon enough.

The gales gave rise to a slashing rain that could be heard running off the roof in thick rivers down the drain spout. The sky darkened so that the only sound was that of thrashing rain and a dog's lonely howling. It did not scare Ganon, though he offhandedly wondered if the roof would hold if it suddenly began to hail.

At long last there was a crack that erupted across the sky as streaks of light. The boom that followed shook the trees and stirred the ground beneath Gannon's bed. He picked his head up from the pillow and glanced around. He could not remember when he had fallen asleep, but he knew that he had tried and mostly failed while the dog crashed around the house. He listened to the listless hiss of rain outside, the occasional crack and boom. The house made her usual creaks and groans, but was otherwise void of life. Where was Corgi?

He threw on a jacket and boots, and with a flashlight in hand, discovered a window with a torn out screen he must have forgotten to close beside the kitchen counter. He pressed his head against the sill and listened. Water splattered against his face, and he had to shake it out of his ears more than once to hear.

At first all he heard was the rain against the howling of winds. Then, he heard the lonely sounds of a dark barking in the woods. It was Corgi.

His thick rubber boots sank in the new mud forming around the trees. Ganon stumbled about with a waterproof lantern, calling out in the night until he felt his voice go hoarse. After an hour his clothes had soaked through, and he had begun to feel numb and was nowhere closer to finding his dog.

He sat down at a tree root and wrapped his arms around his torso to preserve what body heat he could. As his teeth began to chatter and his body shake, he became aware of something digging in to his leg. When he tried to move away and resituate himself, the hard, oddly shaped protrusion moved.

Curious, he brought the lantern up to look down and see what he had been sitting on. A pair of eye sockets stared up blankly at him. Upon closer inspection, he could also make out the shape of a tiny ribcage and backbone in the mud.

Ganon had never known fear in his life, and this was no exception. As he gazed upon this child's remains, he felt something akin to sorrow or loss, though neither seemed quite right. He picked up the skull and felt an ugly hole in the back of it. Foul smelling sludge dripped out of it, followed by something small and heavy – definitely metallic. Gannon picked up the tiny slug and rolled it between his fingers, examining it in the lantern light.

Corgi came back to the house the following morning after the rains. He was cold, wet, and exhausted. He barely managed to crawl to the door and let out a pitiful moan to alert his owner that he was there. The man who opened the door certainly looked and smelled like his owner, but there was something unrecognizable about the man standing in the doorway. Corgi proceeded with caution, scampering past Ganon to his bed where he curled up beside the still warm embers of last night's fire.

Several days later, Ganon was given the stink eye and the police commisioner's office. A private investigator? They questioned his disguise, though he was skilled in what he needed to be, and he managed to access what he needed to.

The bullet he recovered was sent to ballistics. Meanwhile, he perused missing persons reports and the profiles of the licensed gun owners in the area. With his hulking form hunched over paper clippings and photographs, he was a strange sight to behold.

Even stranger was his antisocial attitude towards everyone. No one dared approach him after the third or fourth day, not necessarily because they were afraid that he would hurt them, but because all previous attempts at basic interactions with the man had gone completely unanswered.

At long last, ballistics came back with their report. The bullet came from an older model of a hunting rifle that had just gone out of circulation due to inefficiencies.

"This one belongs to the hardware store owner who lives in the suburbs near the lake," Ganon said, taking the report in hand and scanning it over. "His name is Niko." He murmured more to himself than the researcher, though he was just loud enough for the other man to overhear.

"Do you have a photographic memory?" The young Hylian man asked, flabbergasted. He found it incredible that the mysterious man could remember one profile out of the hundreds he must have read through for the past week.

Ganon did not know how to answer, so stacked the reports and left without responding. On the way out he filed his case as dead without leads and made sure to switch Niko's profile around with a woman's he had found at random.

Ganon was a man of action, though he was not above meticulously planning his movements. He cleared a space on his counter dedicated specifically to his cause. From the light of a dim 40 watt bulb, he kept record of his intentions and observations.

Armed with no more than a steno pad and a pen, Ganon visited the suburbs daily and effectively stalked this fellow Niko. He knew everything from how his store had recently been doing poorly now that a mega hardware store opened up in the city, to the restaurant he took his wife to every Thursday evening at six o'clock sharp, to the laundry list of affairs he had going on behind even his closest friends' backs.

Niko himself was a peculiar man. He exuberated a sense of confidence to the extent of dangerous absurdity. He gambled, he drank away his money with little regard to his own health. While his business went down and his funds grew as short as his stubby legs, so too did the fuse on his temper towards his wife, even when they were in public. Of course those paranoid scam artists with whom he worked in cahoots seemed notice that their partner's sanity was slipping, as if it were slowly being eroded away by some sloshing internal tide.

Ganon was not one to jump to conclusions, though it seemed logical enough to him that Niko's murdering of his own child, either on purpose or on accident, would be enough to catalyze anyone's descent into madness.

At last came the day Ganon took action. He gave Corgi a meal of meaty leftovers, and left the woods for the city.

The gritty side streets were alive as the evening rush hour thrusted in full throttle. Ganon watched the transaction between Niko and a small sect of the Zora mafia in a pawn shop from across the street through a window. Niko was to carry a suitcase filled with cash to another location where the money would be used as compensation to a drug smuggling ring run by a notorious Hylian gang.

To minimize himself from being the target of two organized crime circles, Ganon needed to wait until Niko was finished, and therefore a little more expendable.

At the sound of a car door slamming shut, Ganon pocketed his hands in a long black overcoat and followed Niko's escort down a series of narrow streets. They arrived at a laundromat where Niko's two escorts ushered him towards the entrance. Not three minutes after their forms disappeared behind the glass doors did gun shots ring out into the air.

Ganon, who had been hiding, crouched behind a dead bush next door at an odorous gas station, squinted his amber eyes through the neon lights to see what was going on. A lone figure with short, stubby legs came running out at Godspeed, heavy suitcase in hand. It was Niko.

Following uncomfortably close behind were two Hylian men. Both waved guns in the air, firing round after round in Niko's general direction. Ganon cursed his luck and kicked out from behind his hiding spot to join the pursuit. Given Niko's current predicament, it seemed that this was Ganon's only window of opportunity, and it was quickly closing.

Niko wove in and out of the streets and behind buildings, daringly stepping in front of traffic to waylay his pursuers. Ganon saw several onlookers reach for their phones to dial for the police. Seeming to sense the new urgency of his escape, even before the red and blue lights came flickering onto the scene and sirens pierced the air, Niko ran back through a series of dank back streets.

Ganon caught up to one of the gang members in an obscured alley filled with wrappers and human feces and bashed the man's head against one of the brick walls. He stepped away from the unconscious man, breathing heavily. Where did that sneaky slimeball go? He held his breath and listened for the sounds of footsteps. Hearing none, he turned and stepped back into a busier street.

The police had corralled traffic into one lane, and had put up tape and stationed heavily armed guards to prevent those travelling by foot from entering a potentially dangerous area. Ganon slipped into an abandoned apartment building to wait the incident out.

Almost as soon as he entered he heard a commotion. Loud footsteps smacked against the floor above him. Ganon took a flight of stairs and could just barely make out Niko's shadow disappearing behind a corner. Ganon sprinted after him with a renewed vigor. The snake would not get away from him this time.

"Come back here!" Ganon heard Niko shout at the form of a young woman who had the suitcase in hand and was quickly climbing to the roof. Before Niko could even entertain the fantasy of retrieving the suitcase, Ganon had body slammed the much smaller man to the ground.

The orange glow of city nightlife came through the curtain-less windows and illuminated Ganon angrily. The light caught his rich red hair so that it appeared to be on fire. Niko began babbling like a dolt, tears streaming down his face as he writhed. Ganon smiled without mirth, teeth bared so that he looked like the devil incarnate.

Niko was saying something about his wife. Ganon fished out his hunting knife and the man beneath him screamed, shrilly. Words spilled at random from the shopkeeper's flapping, drooling lips.

Please spare him – he had a shop to run. Killing him would be too much work, wouldn't it? Especially if his body had to be hidden away. The police were on their way anyways. Didn't Ganon have a soul? He had a daughter…

At mention of the daughter, Ganon bared his teeth in a snarl and snapped the man's wrist like a twig. Niko howled anew, this time in excruciating pain and agony. Ganon pinned the pathetic worm down by the broken wrist and brought the knife down onto his index finger, slowly applying pressure.

The first cut went deep, shredding sinew and lacerating the bone. Niko squealed like a pig and writhed, slamming the back of his head into the bare concrete. Ganon continued, making his cuts slow and purposeful. He relished the feel of his knife biting and grating into flesh and bone and he grinned at the grisly sight.

Niko nearly passed out once Ganon had relieved him of both his index finger and thumb. He did not, though. Ganon made sure of it. Once the ordeal was over, the brutish man got up and let the smaller one cower on the ground, holding his deformed arm, sobbing.

Ganon wondered if Niko knew that this was retribution for what Niko had done to his own daughter. Or, did Niko now see himself of a victim of some heinous crime that was completely unrelated? Either way, Ganon was satisfied.

* * *

Writing prompt number 153: What gives you the howling fantods?

1.) Parents who murder their own children

2.) People who hurt others for their own enjoyment

3.) Writing this thing


	3. Follies and Falacies

Nabooru promptly closed her journal, capturing the list of prompts into the binding. She ran a dark, long fingered hand through thick amber tresses, almost laughing at how silly she felt.

Almost, that is. She would have been laughing if it were a joke and not something that would be graded as an assignment for school. Why the hell were journals graded anyways? She was offended – it wasn't like she was in elementary school, just learning basic sentence structures and how to express herself. By ninth grade she figured teachers would have more integrity and actually teach.

Integrity was possibly too much to ask for. At least from public schools. She wished that her teachers would stop pressing their faces to their books, their curriculum and look up for once. Show some basic understanding of their students' lives. She knew they knew. They always knew.

If she were allowed to free journal, well…

Nabooru snuck a glance outside her window. It overlooked a sidewalk sandwiched between a bustling street and tenement style apartment complexes that the government had skillfully disguised as advertisement billboards. She watched with veiled eyes as some miserable fuck got his teeth knocked in by a guy who was holding a gun the wrong way. She saw a lot of things out of that window. Most of them terrible.

She raced through the rest of her homework, not pausing or checking for mistakes. She figured it would be better to try to occupy her mind with something other than reality.

At long last all that was left was that writing prompt. She opened the journal with a lackluster flick of the wrist. And then she sat there.

Insofar as writing prompts went, this was one Nabooru had not one inkling on how to begin. The daily assigned writing prompts were usually silly but this she found particularly ridiculous if not frustratingly perplexing.

She rose amidst the clutter of her room to fetch a mug of steaming coffee that smelled about as rank as it tasted. She paced, thinking, working her mind into a fervor.

First of all, there was no possible way the world governments would come to the consensus to save all of humanity. She could see the select few – the top one percent of one percent? – getting a free ticket to Mars. The rest? Nabooru reckoned they would be sold alongside the ground they stood on as slave labor to the new residents.

Whoever they may be. Some higher life form, perhaps? Now that was something she really could not think about without losing her sanity. Absolutely ridiculous!

Her thoughts continued like this until several hours had passed and she had become very hungry. She prepared to go out for the night while her mama was out working. Before leaving, she withdrew a bleeding pen and scribbled:

 _Not for sale. The world can burn for all I care, and all of humanity with it._

it would be an understatement to say that Nabooru hated pretty much everyone and everything. Very rarely were there times when she saw true kindness from another person, just small acts of goodness for self serving purposes, usually for highly manipulative ones too. The only person Nabooru really trusted was her mama, and that was because she was the most hard working, honest, and ethical woman Nabooru knew.

Her mama was one of the middle children of around fifteen or sixteen - the numbers changed all the time. Sometime when her mama was sixteen she got separated from her family and never saw them again. After that, she went through an era of homelessness, and, in an attempt to get out of being homeless, fell victim to a number of scams and other hullabaloo that truly evil people make to prey on the desperation of others as a means of lining their pockets.

Her mother fell into enormous debt and, even while pregnant with Nabooru, worked around the clock to make something for the child she was about to bring into the world. It took Nabooru a little while to see it, but once she did, she realized she was fortunate to have her mama, and made it a goal to work as hard as she could to work hard to lessen her mama's workload, and to get a good education to get them out of hard times.

She had been doing alright in the working department, right up until life happened.

Just a month ago, Nabooru had a job working retail at a fairly well paying job. The company took a hit and worker compensation was slashed,so she and a number of other workers were laid off on short notice. Although she had tried a number of times to find new work, there was always some problem: Too young, too inexperienced; they were already overstaffed and couldn't possibly take another, they could hire her, but not pay her. Meanwhile, there was a deficit in her and her mama's income that needed to be addressed immediately.

Nabooru decided to learn the art of pickpocketing. It was not ideal, but she refused to prostitute herself and wasn't desperate enough to bind herself to someone else via contract or otherwise. It was definitely less consistent than working at an hourly paying job (She was not very good at it yet as she had just started a month ago), but it was at least something. She took to the streets at night to hone her craft.

Her night was somewhat successful. She had selected targets who appeared to be tourists – they knew not the area and were less paranoid about their belongings than the residents – and hoped that their wallets would be stuffed. She found a couple red rupees, mostly blues and greens. Her calculated total by the end of the night was 140 rupees, which would be a great help to paying off some of her mother's massively accrued debt.

She checked the time and realized she had to get off the streets soon, for it would be unsafe for her to be out much later. The streets were packed with the city ratrace, and they also reeked of diesel and smoke. The sun had completely diminished, and the night was set alight by neon signs and flashes of bright halogen lighting. Nabooru could not move very quickly without stepping off the curb and risking her getting hit by an impatient driver. Instead she had to slowly walk, bump, and occasionally weave through a mass of people, all without pissing anyone off.

She heard screeching sirens rise up into the air. The blares were telltale of law enforcement, not emergency rescue responders, and they sent her into a cold sweat. Her first thought, of course, was that one of those tourists had called the police. Rather than risk being frisked, she decided to disappear. As nonchalantly as she was able, she turned and broke into an abandoned warehouse store where she and some of her other Gerudo friends used to hang out when they were all younger.

There was the familiar dank scent of mildew and dust. Nabooru sneezed. The cement walls had been stripped bare of wallpaper, and much of the carpeted flooring was decayed from bug infestations. Big bulb-less lights hung useless from the ceiling, wires spilling out like one of those tentacle monsters found at the bottom of the ocean. It was just as she remembered it, granted, at least a zillion times creepier at night. Nabooru shook away the terrors running up and down her spine and found a staircase leading to what used to be offices with windows she could use to look down at the commotion outside.

The police had roped off large sections of street. Traffic was being redirected. Nabooru would have chuckled at her naivety if she weren't concerned for the liberal dispatching of units. They weren't looking for her, that's for sure.

She waited for several minutes, realizing that she may be cooped up for longer than anticipated. Her mom was working a double shift at the restaurant, bless her heart, and would not be back home until well after midnight. She certainly had time, but hoped that the incident below would resolved soon so that the area below did not remain roped off for too long. It was getting cold.

It was in the still silence that Nabooru suddenly became very aware of the darkness. It was in the abysmal, dampening crevices in the room that the unknown and mysterious crept upon her, slowly entangling her in a dangerous web, resurrecting a fear from her early child she thought she had all but outgrown.

The shadows morphed into creatures of darkness, and despite her best efforts to cast them from her mind, she was poor at it. She saw wolfos fangs in the filaments, giant slugs and lizalfos in abandoned mannequins and chairs. The holes in the walls became the residence to man eating rats and long, poisonous bugs with hard shells and thousands of spindly legs that go _clack clack clack!_ Her mind breathed life into the monsters with sharp, spindling fingers that would gouge her eyes, or the kinds with pincers that could slice off her limbs. She wrapped herself in her sweater for warmth and rocked herself, her conscious, reasoning mind at war with her biologically wired fear mechanics.

Then, what must have – it had to be – the pattern on the wall, scars from scraping off glue and wallpaper, the shape of a man standing in her field of vision. He was a ghastly sight. Stubby legs, wild, greying hair. He appeared pressed against the wall, like someone had squashed him flat.

Of all of the creatures that could possibly go bump in the night, Nabooru feared man most. No other creature was quite as despicable as man; he who tortured, he who murdered, he who destroyed the lives of thousands in the name of greed, dishonesty, or power; he who was apathetic, spiteful, hateful; he who was, at the core, weak and fragile, made violent by his own insecurities; made dangerous by machinations of war; he who was fueled by flawed idealism and ignorance made pain upon others. Man was king of terror.

And then he moved. Nabooru bit back a sob, swallowing repeatedly to ease her knotting throat. The man muttered, stuttering to himself, and agitatedly combed his hand through his wild hair. He went into the middle of the room and opened the heavy briefcase he was carrying. The clasped clacked noisily over his heavy breathing. She realized he must have been running, as Nabooru could now see the sweat glistening off his brow.

She watched with sudden interest as the man withdrew rupees from within the case and put them into his breast pocket with a pat. He shoved the briefcase to the corner and slid it into a crack in the wall until it was inconspicuous. He then ran over to one of the windows, far enough away from Nabooru so that he did not notice her. She watched as his breath pooled in condensed puddles onto the dirty window. Seemingly content by something, he turned tail and ran back towards the stairs leading downwards.

The incredibly intense notion of curiosity struck Nabooru the moment he was gone. It drove away thoughts of monsters that go bump in the night. A hunger replaced the fear she had felt just moments ago. She thought of all of the money that must be hidden inside that case, and wondered how much of it she could carry with her at one time. She could feel anticipation tingling on the tip of her tongue. It could save her mom from having to work herself to exhaustion just to pay their minimum necessities. It could be enough to unshackle them from debt. Maybe she could buy a computer, or a new phone. Maybe they could move someplace nicer. She waited with bated breath for several minutes before slowly creeping out and sitting in front of the crevice where the man had stashed his briefcase.

 _I wonder where he disappeared off to…_ Nabooru knew she was crazy. She grasped the leather handle and yanked the heavy briefcase out from it's hiding spot. She ran her fingers along the metallic clasps, licking her lips. This was a terrible, terrible idea.

But it was worth a look anyways.

The clasps made loud noises as she opened them with haste. The moment she threw the briefcase open her eyes widened with a sort of deranged delight. There were stacks upon stacks of silver rupees.

It occurred to the girl that this might be the reason for the commotion with the police outside.

"Hey!"

Nabooru's head shot up. The man was back, panting. She felt her vision flicker with a beastly anger. The clasps must have made too much noise. How could she have been so careless?!

She slammed the case closed and did the one thing that seemed to make any sort of sense to her in that moment. She ran with it.

While he was fully grown and likely much stronger and faster than Nabooru, she had adrenaline on her side. It was clear that he was already exhausted from whatever running he had done earlier. She pounded up towards the upper levels, aiming for the roof.

"Come back here!"

She clamored upwards, hugging the bulky case in her arms close to her body. In her haste, she stumbled up the stairs and fell with a low grunt. She felt her hip collide with the edge of the stairs and her leg go tingly numb for a moment before a deep aching pain set in.

She heard the assailant gaining on her, the railing beside her head rattling as he came around the landing. Upon coming into view he pointed at her with the intent of tackling her and wrestling the case from her grasp. Nabooru tensed, ready to give him a good kick in the face with her good leg. Just as she drew her leg back for a blow, a large shadow, like a boar, flitted behind the other man for the briefest of moments.

Some kind of monster came down upon the man, throwing him to the grown like a ragdoll and pinning him down easily. The attacker wore a long black overcoat that barely held in a massive form, and sported an unruly mane of red hair that caught the light coming in from one of the windows. For a split moment, Nabooru wondered if he might be part lion. The brute brought out a terrifying serrated knife that had long, needle like teeth.

She watched the ordeal from her perch on the stairs. She cringed at the screaming, and closed her eyes once blood began to spurt and squirt all over the floor. Her instincts told her to run like a rabbit, but her body remained frozen in place.

At long last the figure rose. She expected to see the other man dead. Curiously, he was not, though Nabooru did not let her mind dwell on that. Nabooru felt incredibly weak as the larger man stared down at his handiwork. No remorse, no joy, not even disgust.

Suddenly his eyes found hers, and Nabooru's heart jumped into her throat. She let out a half strangled cry for help, still clinging to the case of money like a lifeline.

And then he came towards her.

* * *

Writing prompt number 6: Planet for sale

Writing prompt number 16: Where had he disappeared?


	4. A Girl's Gotta Do

Nabooru awoke to the gentle rumble of steel wheels against tracks and a sore spot at the base of her ear. Her body felt like lead, and her memory was questionable at best.

She had been at an apartment store. It was late at night. There was some serial killer, rape-y monster who sawed off another guy's fingers…

 _I totally deserve a day off from school_ …

She jolted upright in her booth. Sitting across from her was the serial killer, rape-y monster from the other night. He was resting with his head against the window, eyes closed against a mid-morning sun that splashed light onto the table between them. Nabooru felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up one by one.

Should she run? Should she scream? Was he really asleep or was he secretly awake and waiting for her to try to make her escape? Her paranoia kicked in.

She figured it could be easier to lie back down again and pretend to still be asleep. Bu that was something she was extremely unwilling to do. Aside from that, she worried she might make too much noise in the act of lying back down again. Instead of running the risk of waking him, she remained as she was, sitting bolt upright, silently staring at him in sheer horror.

A futile endeavor that proved to be, when, moments later, the man's amber eyes cracked open and took her in. Nabooru clenched the cloth seat with her fingers.

"I'll scream," Nabooru threatened, death in her eyes. "I'll scream if you so much as lay a fucking finger on me, you pig!"

He gazed at her for but a moment, his face as expressionless as ever. After assessing that she was not an immediate threat, he closed his eyes again and situated his head against the window once more. Nabooru felt her stomach flutter, not yet ready to take a breath of relief.

She slowly edged her way off the seat until she was against the sliding wood door. The latch made sound when she opened it, sending beads of sweat springing all the way down her to fingertips. She made the mistake of making noise opening something up once, and that was a blunder she was loath to repeat given the consequences. She gave the bulky man a good looking over and determined that he really must still be asleep, and slipped into the hall.

She made a beeline for the bathroom and locked the door. The reflection that greeted her in the mirror was frightful. The night before came back to her in a vivid slew of emotions. She remembered the case. All of that money…

It would have been enough to cover their debt, their living expenses even if they had moved. She and her mama could have had a slice of the good life. They could have been happy. The case was in her arms. She had been touching that reality, and although it was long gone, the ghost of what could have been haunted her.

Nabooru's thoughts turned to her mama. Suddenly, a whole new slew of emotions welled up within her and threatened to spill out. She hadn't any idea where she even was in Hyrule, let alone how to get back home.

It seemed like the moment she had the potential to have it all, she had ended up losing absolutely everything. Offhandedly, she wondered if she would see her mama ever again. Like mother, like daughter. Was she too destined to be estranged from her mama after an accidental separation and never hear word again? The thought was dizzying and all entirely too much for her to handle.

She a felt a stinging behind her eyes. For several moments she let herself sob silently while fixing her hair to look somewhat normal. She absolutely refused to shed a tear. Once she was calm enough to breathe normally, she took a large gulp of air and closed her eyes. She recognized that she had to weigh her options proceeding in delicate matters like these.

She could turn herself into authorities. Doing so would guarantee her protection and release back to her mother, which was an extremely attractive option. However, the idea truly disgusted her. Although she knew she would be safer with law enforcement than a _likely_ serial killer, she felt incredibly uncomfortable with even entertaining the idea of doing so. Perhaps it was the identity for herself that she had built upon petty crimes, but her immediate instinct was to avoid the police at all costs. It was not beyond the realm of possibility that they would send her elsewhere and tack her to a legal system like foster care until she was of legal age. After all, who was she? There was no incentive whatsoever to send her anywhere but a state center. Going to the police would have to be a last resort.

She thought for a good several minutes in an attempt to find an alternative course of action. Each time, her mind either drew a numb blank or something completely ridiculous such as the idea of jumping off the train sprung up out of nowhere and seemed almost logical. Logical until, that is, she remembered that they were travelling at nearly one-hundred kilometers an hour and she would be lucky to break her legs.

She cracked the door open a smidgen to look down the hall. There were two people in the isle. One was a uniformed attendant who cheerfully went to each compartment to greet the passengers on this fine morning. The other was a little girl who played peek a boo with her parents with the sliding door of their compartment. Finally, at the end of the long hallway was a security attendant standing stoically at the door leading to the next compartment. Nabooru retreated back into the bathroom to ready herself.

 _Well, I suppose a girl's gotta do what she's gotta do…_

Like a horse bursting forth from the stables, she threw the lavatory doors aside and ran down the isles screaming on the top of her lungs. Heads shot out of compartments faster than a lizalfos shakes his tail. The security guard scowled and grabbed her easily by the shoulder. He scolded her.

"Miss, are you deranged?" he questioned, clearly miffed at her behavior. "Please sit down or I will have you detained. Trust me, you do not want that." He emphasized the threat with a cold stare. "We have a special little holding cell at the station for deviants that spills over into the local police station. It can take up to 24 hours to have you cleared."

He ushered her back towards her compartment. She dug her heels into the carpet and swung at him with angry closed fists. He performed some kind of maneuver. Nabooru's world inverted and she found herself in a body hold with her arms twisted at odd angles.

"There is absolutely nothing to see here," the security guard hollered. "Please return to your compartments immediately!"

The heads, shoulders, and other body parts returned rather reluctantly to their respective compartments, though bubbly murmurs busied the air, even from behind closed doors.

"Is that the girl who had the boss's money?" She heard a nasal voice whisper while she was upside down. "Niko said she had the briefcase with her!"

"Look out for the big oaf that took out Stan. I heard he's with her."

Nabooru let out an involuntary gasp. The security guard slowly eased her out of a hold, assuming she was in pain. He escorted her rather forcefully to another compartment where she sat, sandwiched between two other security guards.

"You caused quite the stir," the one on her right commented. He was an aging Hylian man with extremely pale skin and a thick, white mustache. His words sounded like a reprimand to her race, and she crossed her arms. "It just goes to show how our great country has fallen. Our youth have no sense of courtesy at all, whatsoever."

The man on her left, a younger Hylian with just as fair of skin, nodded absently in agreement. He looked tired, as if he hadn't slept well in days. Even his long, pointed ears drooped. Nabooru felt the stirrings of agitation in her gut.

She had specifically drawn undue attention to herself for protection. If this was all the train had to offer her, she was as good as fucked. Not only was there some rape-y serial killer onboard, but an undisclosed number of gang members who likely were after some bounty the guy-sans-two-fingers from last night had placed on her head.

She glanced up at the elderly one on her right. He gave a distainful snort as she looked up at him.

"Yeah, definitely not going to even try explaining all that to you," she muttered. She figured that some protection was better than zero protection, and though she hated being stuck under surveillance of any kind, she really had no choice in the matter but to stay as still as possible and hopefully wait the train ride out.

"Where are we even going?" Nabooru blurted. The one with a white mustache gave an incredulous sigh and told her the name of a crazy sounding place with lots of oohs and aaahs in the name.

"Does it look like I know where that is?" she retorted.

"Right next to the desert region. Back in my day, we used to call it the Gerudo desert, but according to some idiot, that's not politically correct anymore," the man responded with a pointed glare at her.

Nabooru felt her heart sink in her chest. She had to be around five or six hours from home by now. She took a fleeting glance out the window at tall prairie grasses that rippled in the high winds generated by the train's movement. They weren't anywhere near a goddess damned desert. At this rate, she could be a half a day's ride from her mom by the time the train stopped.

"Do you have a phone I could use?" she ventured. "I need to tell my mama where I'm going."

The younger guard on her left pulled out a flip phone and handed it to her. She quickly dialed and rolled her eyes when she was kept waiting for several minutes. Finally, the hostess answered. From the sound of it, the girl was a Goron.

"Yeah, my name is Nabooru. I need you to get a message – here, do you have a piece of paper nearby? I need you to get a message to my mother."

"Hon, your mom ain't working here today," the Goron rumbled.

"Yeah, I get that. But can you get word to her that I'm okay? I literally have no other way of telling her," Nabooru responded, acidly.

"Not when you ask me like that!" the Goron retorted, clearly offended.

"Please."

"…fine….very well. I'll see what I can do." The Goron hung up.

She handed the phone back and leaned back. Even though there was nothing more she could really do, she felt very uneasy. She didn't trust that anyone would talk to her mama. And it wasn't like she and her mama had a landline or anything that she could just call and leave a message.

It wasn't until several hours later that there was another commotion taking place. In the same compartment no less.

"What is with these people today?!" the guard with a white mustache said in disbelief. "Never in my life! Never, never, _never,_ in my life has there been such commotion!"

"Surprise, surprise," Nabooru murmured. "Guess that happens when you have the whole fucking mafia on your train."

"What?" he demanded to know exactly what she had just said as he rose to investigate the train car. Nabooru surprised himself and responded.

"You guys have issues. Like, a lot of them. If you let on the people you do so readily I'm surprised this entire enterprise hasn't derailed – excuse the pun."

The moment he left she rounded onto the other one.

"You're going to help me get off this train."

"Ma'am, you're crazy," he mumbled.

* * *

Writing prompt number 102: I deserve a day off from school


	5. The Droplet's Boundary

_If I am a drop of water in an endless ocean, where do you begin and where do I end? Am I boundless, or will you separate me and tell me who I am? Will you be the one to put a boundary between myself and others?_

Midna let her hands drop to her sides and examined her long profile in the full length mirror in the hall. Her makeup accentuated fine blue cheeks and intense orange eyes. She felt quite good today. After all, it was a new beginning.

The moving truck was already packed and ready to move. Midna had said her goodbyes yesterday, but was still receiving farewell texts and long, heartfelt emails from friends who would, "eternally miss her in the Twilight." She had been forewarned by expert friends to avoid the Hyrulean wildlife which was dangerous more often than not, and to make sure to put on lots of sunscreen since the sun was really damaging to the skin.

Earlier that day, she had performed a parting ritual with her old house, smelling the drapes in her room, now vacant, a skeleton of what it once was. She spent some time lying on the tiled floors, staring up at the ceiling, feeling the corners and the shapes of the house, letting them spill into her minds eye where she could remember it perfectly. At last, she was ready to let go.

The doors to the moving truck had to be slammed shut, but they had to be that way so as not to come off when they entered the portal leading from the Twilight to Hyrule. Midna found the portal dizzying, a sentiment echoed by her mother. For some reason her father was fine with it and teased his wife and child. He teased them as best he could, signing while driving in a way for his daughter to see. Midna was deaf.

Midna learned about Hyrule from books and the internet, saw pictures of some of the attractions, but never expected everything to be so bright. She had to shield her eyes for some time, before she could gaze out the window, which built the anticipation.

She took out her phone and found pictures of women wearing late summer dresses. Most of them were Hylian, with long pointed ears and fair skin, though sometimes she would find another Twili to look at who was more often than not wearing traditional clothing. The models were posed with radiant smiles that bled off the pages. She did not really know why exactly, but this made her feel happy. A smile touched her lips. They were all very pretty.

Her mother tapped her shoulder. "Why don't you look up?"

Midna closed the browser and spent a couple hours watching the blurring countryside yield to an urban metropolis. Thick prairie grasses slowly shrank and became greener. Trees became skyscrapers. Midna felt a twinge of excitement with a little bit of fear. She felt like she could be easily lost in an area like this.

"I wonder what those billboards are advertising," her mother signed, pointing. High above and to the far left, away from the main roads, there were series of large blue and orange signs with sparse words or abstract drawings. "They are awfully big but they don't seem to say much."

Midna peered out traced the billboard lines with her eye. She sucked on her lip as she made out small indents and guardrails. "Those are not billboards," she replied. "If you look closely enough, you can see there are small openings that are painted a different shade to look like it's all one flat surface. Do you see that small dark shape over on the blue one to the left?"

Her mother leaned over towards the window. "Yes."

"That's a person. I can see his head."

Midna watched her mother's forehead furrow. The Twili woman shook her head once, almost agitatedly. Midna returned her gaze to the window, feeling the car rumble beneath her chin.

Outside she watched people go about their daily lives. She took particular interest in the way they all walked, as if in a hurry, and with their heads down. She saw one woman holding a heavy looking briefcase in one hand, and a carton of six coffees in the other, all while walking a mile a minute in stilettos. Although each person had a slightly different variant, there was always an underlying sense of hurriedness and of being lost in one's own world.

 _In an ocean such as this, travelling these well-formed currents, it's easy to be swept up into an illusion of what it important,_ Midna concluded. _Is it possible to live a routine life without losing the ability to choose my own path and direction? Can I choose not to rush or lower my head?_ She took one last glance out of the window as the blue and orange billboard houses disappeared behind a monstrous building. _Is it so easy to fall into the current and pretend? To the point of disguising what is already unseen into something even more invisible._

"I am a drop of water in an endless ocean," she signed to the reflection of herself in the car window.

 _But will I be the one of those who are left behind and forgotten in stagnant water?_

The lonely thought made her feel bitter.

The new house smelled of wood and plaster. By the time they arrived and unloaded it was late evening and the setting sun streamed through a large kitchen window and into the bare dining room. It was a pretty sight, though Midna thought it was cold without twilight styled carpets and furnishings. They celebrated moving in by eating by candlelight.

The following morning Midna awoke an hour early. Excitement jumped through her veins as she slipped into a black blouse and matching pants. She wolfed down breakfast so quickly, her father was afraid she might get sick.

"You wouldn't want that," he warned. "Not on your first day of school."

In the car ride to school, she watched the busy city people do their busy rituals in the pretty blue light of early morning. As the towering school building came into view, she felt her stomach do a somersault. Out of joy, anxiety, or fear, she knew not. Maybe it was a combination of all of the above.

The halls smelled of cleaning supplies and cheaply manufactured school supplies, the plastic kind. Midna's eyes tracked the rapid movements of students much taller than her hauling backpacks and chattering away as they walked to lockers, classes, or loitered in the hallway. She realized with some dismay that she was the only Twili in sight.

Every which way she looked, there were Hylians, all pale skinned with their soft pink ears. There was nothing inherently wrong with them, she just expected to see…maybe just one person like her. She continued her search halfheartedly, knowing that it was futile.

She spotted a herd of Gorons taking up space in one area, blocking an entire hallway while a teacher holding a steaming cup of coffee tried repeatedly to step past them to no avail. They were so loud she could feel their voices vibrating the floor. It was no wonder they were secluded to their own section of the hall.

"This is your homeroom," her mother signed, gesturing to a door reading 103 a little ways down the hall. "I think it's a science lab. Isn't that exciting?" Midna peered in and nodded, seeing black countertops, tiled floors and gas lines. "Impa will meet you in here sometime before class starts. There is still plenty of time."

She bid her parents farewell, and after a few embarrassed pictures posing in front of the classroom, she walked in and found a seat closer to the back where the other students wouldn't be distracted by her interpreter. She waited awhile, and noticed a dripping coming from one of the deionized water faucets.

She watched the spherical drops form, fill, and drop to the bottom of the sink where it became homogeneous with the water at the bottom. In her peripheral, she could see students filling in seats, placing bags on tables and underneath seats. The faucet filled one more drop, but it did not fall.

She looked up and found dozens of eyes on her. She glanced about quickly. Did something happen? She waited a little longer, and felt deeply discomforted.

She could tell the students were laughing at her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw them twitching, holding their mouths. She looked up to find the teacher's eyes on her, with clear annoyance in the way the older woman's deep curves sat at odd angles. Midna sucked her lip and glanced about. Where was Impa?

She felt like she was in a vortex, being pulled down, down by some swirling force unknown. She felt dozens of eyes on her, not seeing her, but looking at her as if she were something there to entertain them. Color flooded her cheeks.

"I'm Midna," she said, feeling the odd shaped vowels and the loose consonants on her tongue. She knew she didn't sound right to the others, but she was wholly unprepared to see them all erupt into laughter. Midna felt tears sting behind her eyes.

"Weird nonsense!" she read off the lips of one of the girls in the corner.

The teacher came by with a sheet of paper and a pencil. 'Your name?' the teacher had written in a fading red pen. Midna wrote her name down and the teacher nodded.

"I was supposed to have an interpreter," she signed, her movements more obtuse with irritation. "Her name is I-M-P-A."

"I'm sorry," the teacher's thick, fast lips read. The rest of her explanation was too quick for Midna to see, but Midna had stopped paying attention, feeling utterly lost and alone.

* * *

Writing prompt number 23: water drop story

Writing prompt number 150: high school


	6. Cupid Missed

Ilia wondered if she should get out of bed today. It was almost noon. She could not remember what time she went to bed the night before. It did not matter anyways, since she never slept well enough to feel well rested. Enough to be productive, that is.

She had an ever growing list of employers to send her resume to, but she often felt she was rejected before she had even applied, and so she had yet to actually try. The list sprawled over her unopened laptop mocked her. She did not dare glance over in fear that a wave of guilt would rise and potentially consume her.

Her dad didn't seem to mind that she was practically freeloading in her old room. At twenty three, Ilia had settled back home. Just while she sorted herself out, she had told herself, despite feeling massively guilty about the whole situation. She just needed time.

She checked her phone – no new messages. There was nothing of interest on her news feed. Same old same old. The new age inspirational blogs she followed did little to stir her motivation. She ended up closing her eyes for a while, running a mental list of all of the things she probably ought to be doing, but probably wouldn't do anyways.

Her thoughts returned to their usual unpleasant pathways. Like an inviting dense fog, she often returned to this mental state of existing exclusively within her own head. Distanced from the rest of reality, she would sit for long periods of time in reflection of what had happened, often probing at why it all happened and how she could have been so blind to it all.

She figured it started with falling in love with a fairytale. She knew the stories well, and, now that she thought about it, they weren't really that well thought out at all. The stories usually consisted of some unspeakable evil holding ransom a princess. A boy would come along, be the hero. She fell in love with him. It was what she had been raised on, and perhaps that was why she stayed with her boyfriend for as long as she did. In retrospect, maybe it was because she thought that was how it was supposed to be. After all, isn't that what everyone had told her true love was?

It was a mistake to think that everything was going to be okay once she was with him. But, that's what she thought love was at the time, and so that's how she felt. She had a number of her own problems – her dad's alcoholism, for one – but she felt that, because she had love, she didn't have to worry about that anymore. This could not have been further from the truth.

The truth was – well, now the truth is a tricky thing. Ilia couldn't really tell what the truth was anymore these days. Was she wrong? Did she deserve to have what was coming for her? Was he wrong? Was the issue with him? Were they both worthless, horrible people? She'd heard everyone's unsolicited opinion on the matter. She'd been called everything from a naïve bitch to a heroic survivor, and everything in between. And so she wasn't sure who to believe, or even if anyone's word was trustworthy to begin with. After all, no one warned her about the evil that goes largely unseen.

No one really talked about what makes a healthy relationship. The gossip that circulated revolved primarily around who is with whom, and if they'd had sex yet. Or how cute they looked in this one photo everyone but Ilia had seen. It was very superficial. And a lot of times the things that other people found endearing – admittedly, Ilia had been one of those people until she was on the receiving end of such things for seven years – were actually very harmful. But, then again, no one ever talked about such things, so who could anyone really know? It was all silly. She had always thought so.

Ilia wanted to be strong. Someone who could rise above the gossip and be happy without an audience applauding each step of her relationship. Ilia hadn't been interested in being someone else's story, and so she had been secretive about her private life.

That was probably a mistake as well. She should have said something, told someone. Because then maybe she would have had at least someone to talk to when things started going sideways and backwards, when nothing really made sense anymore. Someone to tell her which way was up and down, that what she was doing wasn't good for her anymore. Then again, maybe it wasn't. It wasn't as if she trusted anyone in particular.

It was strange. How she could at one time be so open and trusting of other people. Able to laugh and have the privilege of feeling okay. Like it was okay for her to even exist and take up however much space her relatively small body occupied. And after one person, it was like her whole being had been deconstructed and scattered everywhere.

He told her that he loved her. He loved _her._ In the beginning it was like a fairytale in many regards. He gave her all of her attention, taking her to see movies, playing childish board and card games until the wee hours, holding her hand even in line to get cheap pizza at a Friday night game. He was warm, nothing short of kind. It was in the way that he held her. She had felt so safe. In short, she genuinely felt loved.

And that was enough for her to forgive him over and over again. So, while he changed and slowly transformed into someone who was unsupportive, unloving, she clung to the remembrance of that original safety she felt.

She was discomforted by his reading her texts. One day she found him with her phone, and questioned him on it. Though she didn't have anything to hide, and so she forgave him and let it slide. For a while she did not realize that he continued to intermittently read her messages. It was not until she had forgotten about a doctor's appointment and he reminded her. He had read the confirmation text that she had received, but not seen, the night before.

His justification was that he was better organized. He told her he wanted to take care of her. She protested at first, but when he seemed offended that she would refuse his help, she figured that maybe she was being unreasonable. He was just trying to be nice, she reasoned. After all, she could be a little disorganized – she had forgotten about the appointment.

The next time she was made uncomfortable was after she had gone for a routine grocery run. On the way back home, she stopped to visit a friend from high school who was currently studying at technical college. Her meeting was brief – she refused drinks and the offer to go out for a bite to eat – though she genuinely enjoyed the time she had, and wondered why she hadn't gone and seen some of her old friends sooner. He was waiting for her, demanding to know where she had gone, and exactly what she was doing.

"I was running errands," Ilia had said, obviously. She held out the heavy brown paper bags in her arms.

"Where did you go afterwards?" He demanded to know.

Ilia had felt the blood rush to her stomach. She put the groceries down on the counter. "I went to see a friend. Why are you acting so weird?"

"I'm acting weird? I was worried about you!" He claimed, voice rising in a way that made Ilia feel ashamed. "You go to some random neighborhood off Park and don't tell me. And then you claim that I'm acting weird. I dunno, doesn't that sound a bit strange?"

Ilia felt her head spin. "Wait, what?" She pressed her fingers into her cheeks. "How did you know I was at an apartment off Park?"

"No, don't change the subject," he deadpanned. "What were you doing out so late? Look, it's almost four, you're usually back before two-thirty. What am I supposed to think?"

"I don't know!" Ilia was very flustered. "I don't see what's wrong with going to see my friends. I don't get angry when you go see your friends. I don't know what you're supposed to think. I don't even know how you knew where I was all day."

"Maybe that's because you really don't know very much."

He had apologized after that, and Ilia forgave him because she figured he was just looking out for him. That was his job, after all. After that conversation, Ilia made sure she texted him before she went anywhere, and made him aware of her plans.

The moments of discomfort were no longer singular blips along a timeline. It was more of a sense the bled into everything she did. He called her at work asking what she was up to, who she was talking to. He showed up so many times that Ilia lost her job. She was livid at him, but before she could say a word, he told her it was a cover for her poor work ethic. How dare she be so lazy? Now they could only rely on his income to pay the bills. He demanded an apology, which she eventually gave. At parties and other events, he always had his arm slung around her shoulders. If she so much as wanted a glass of water, he would say, "Let me do that. You might spill it and make a scene."

It worsened after that. He tried to take control of her finances, did not want her to leave the house. She did not dare protest. She was too silly, too stupid, too dumb to make an argument that would make sense. She was just being irrational. Couldn't she see that he was the victim in this instance? This was her happy ending…

Ilia sometimes wondered what Cupid was thinking. Maybe he misfired. Maybe it wasn't anyone's fault per se. Maybe the gods had made a mistake.

For a moment she thought long and hard about how entirely messed up reality really is. It was a thought experiment disturbing enough to have her out the door and on the way to the park. Fresh air, she surmised, might clear her head.

It was an awfully humid day, one that she was unprepared for. The moment she arrived at the park gates, she found a picnic table and sat down to mope. She knew she would be alright eventually. Though, she was getting awfully sick and tired of waking up each morning feeling like mess and a complete failure at life. She wondered how much more she would be able to take before she really needed to see a therapist or something.

She heard panting beneath the table, and while at first she thought that some children had crawled beneath and were playing under there, she realized that it was a dog the moment it's tongue came out and lapped at her knee. She looked down below and found an adorable corgi pawing at her shoes. He was well fed, and had a collar on, though there was no tag and so she couldn't read it. She picked him up and petted his red head, even as he continued trying to lick her face.

"You must be awfully thirsty, is that right?" she hauled him over to a public water fountain, took a good look around to make sure no one was watching, and pushed the button in so that he could drink from the spout. She felt him surge for the water in her arms, and almost dropped him. "You were thirsty, huh?" she commented once the had drank his fill and they were seated on the bench again. "It's too hot out here for you. Where is your owner?"

She looked around and saw everyone going about their paradoxically speedy but slow moving lives. No one appeared to be paying any sort of attention to either herself or the dog, Ilia observed, suddenly feeling very exhausted for having been out for so long in the heat. While she considered bringing the dog with her back home - just until she could get him to the human society where they could locate the owner, she justified - she felt eyes on her.

Ilia turned slowly, feeling somewhat discomforted that someone would, actually, be paying her any mind when their attention belonged within their own paradoxically speedy but slow moving lives. She found herself looking at a girl who was sitting alone at a picnic table with books and looseleaf sprawled out in front of her.

The girl had dark blue skin, like a late evening sky. Her curious eyes were a rich orange to match long hair tied back in a ponytail. Ilia felt her breath catch.

Those eyes were not glazed over, casting some superficial gaze wide across the field. That gaze was not a happenstance gaze that landed on her during some change moment when two strangers' eyes met. This mysterious girl was watching her on purpose.

No, not watching her. It wasn't like she was some passive observer. Nor was it as if she were analyzing her. Ilia couldn't quite explain it, though she felt like, of all of the things she had seen today from behind the misty fugue of her state of consciousness, this was the first thing that was real.

It was as if, for the first time since her life had gone to chaos, some part of reality decided to stop for her rather than passing her by in a whizzing blur. For the briefest of moments, Ilia felt something in her move. She felt the familiar stirrings of her deeper essence, some part of her old self that had come to a frozen standstill.

Eventually she felt silly enough to want to say something. She managed a whispered, "Hello," though she could scarcely hear herself. Instead she stared back, green eyes wide. The girl just smiled a little, blue cheeks coloring ever so slightly in acknowledgement of Ilia's attention.

 _I see you seeing me,_ Ilia thought, trying to communicate through her eyes. _Can you tell me what you see? Can you tell me who I am?_

* * *

Writing prompt number 15: Cupid misfired

That's all for now!


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